This thread amazes me. It seems the answer is just two little words: common sense.

OF COURSE driving with IEMs is a major distraction, similar to driving with a really blasted stereo or talking on your cell phone.

Personally, I think.driving with closed earphones is the worst, and I never even imagined people were careless enough to do it.

The big problem to me is that IEMs really seal you off from the outside world. I go running with headphones and on just the short run from my house to the nearby track I have almost been hit a couple of times, I am careful to keep my volume low, but still, earphones really separate you from the outside world. For the same reason, i always keep my car stereo at a reasonable volume.

I would LOVE to wear my IEMs while I am driving, because my car stereo is a real POS. But I feel it's irresponsible. In Japan it is illegal, btw...Edited by takoyaki7 - 12/15/10 at 11:08pm

Drove 4 1/2 hours last Sunday to meet a head-fier. Wore my IEMs the entire way and had no situations where the IEMs caused me to think I had been impaired.

If you are busy city streets that's one thing, but if you are just poking around your small community you know like the back of your hand, or are out on the open road there's no reason not to use them.

This is the dumbest thread. It's dangerous not to be able to hear what is going around you while driving - duh, and only takes one (possibly terrible) incident before you never do it again! Enough already.

Some here should look up the local requirements for deaf people to get their driver's license - in most places they are no different than for people who can hear.

So if a deaf person can drive, why can't someone drive while wearing headphones? It's not the same thing as using a cell phone, because unlike listening to music, talking on a cell phone is distracting.

But maybe some here are like my Grandad: he used to forbid any radio while he was driving and even sometimes forbid any one else in the car from talking. don't think he ever had an accident though.

This is the dumbest thread. It's dangerous not to be able to hear what is going around you while driving - duh, and only takes one (possibly terrible) incident before you never do it again! Enough already.

Did you actually read any of it before you jumped in with another stupid appeal to emotion instead of addressing an actual argument put forth in favor of the proposition?

Deaf people can drive and Lexus, etc is allowed to sell super quiet cars, therefore isolation is an acceptable risk.

People can listen to their stereos in their cars, therefore music in an acceptable risk.

It follows that using headphones while driving is also an acceptable risk.

So far no one has addressed these points with a logical counter argument, nor produced a study showing any of these assumptions are invalid.

After reading this thread (an interesting read, might I add), I really have to wonder how many of you naysayers have ever tried driving with headphones/earphones. At least in the U.S. (I know in many other countries, driving with complete disregard for common sense is essentially the standard), outside of ultra-busy big city downtown areas, driving is basically 99% visual. As long as you're not thumbing through your entire music library trying to decide what to play, listening to earphones while driving is virtually no different than listening to your stereo. I don't even mean blasting the stereo, either; listening to my own car's stereo at only a medium level (comfortable listening), I could barely hear a firetruck blasting its sirens from behind me until it got quite close. And before anyone says something, I was pulled over to the side of the road and stopped long before the firetruck got near - as if distant flashing lights in the mirror wasn't enough of a warning, other cars pulling over ought to make it plainly obvious. Again, driving is almost entirely visual.

I am FAR more concerned about the elderly and people blabbing away or texting on their phones behind the wheel than I am about people wearing earphones (I've seen a few) or listening to their stereo.

I was a bit surprised by some of the posts I've read, as well. If you don't know to look both ways for a bus before venturing into the street or what have you, I wouldn't be very comfortable driving around you, either. And that's whether you're wearing headphones or not.

Many great film editors have said the same thing: a film's visual elements don't contribute as much to its sense of reality as its auditory elements. Verisimilitude is important in cinema, but it's indispensable in driving. Even with a stereo cranked up, you can still hear little outside noises that keep the external reality of the road as immediate as it should be.

Dolby built a business on the fact that something different happens when the left and right channels come through phones and are mixed by your brain. Perhaps that's the reason so much more displacement occurs.

Your pseudo intellectual logic is a stupid joke. Deaf people are generally more visually aware, which is most likely safer than some moron driving around with distracting (to say the least) music blasting in his/her ears. Also, your Lexis "proposition" is just plain ridiculous... "Super Quiet" - have you measured that level of isolation as compared to a pair of cranked-up IEMs in ones head? LOL.

How about a deaf person in a Lexis? HAHA! Why don't you just close your eyes too and hope for the best?

Quote:

Originally Posted by maverick

Quote:

Originally Posted by ace5000

This is the dumbest thread. It's dangerous not to be able to hear what is going around you while driving - duh, and only takes one (possibly terrible) incident before you never do it again! Enough already.

Did you actually read any of it before you jumped in with another stupid appeal to emotion instead of addressing an actual argument put forth in favor of the proposition?

Deaf people can drive and Lexus, etc is allowed to sell super quiet cars, therefore isolation is an acceptable risk.

People can listen to their stereos in their cars, therefore music in an acceptable risk.

It follows that using headphones while driving is also an acceptable risk.

So far no one has addressed these points with a logical counter argument, nor produced a study showing any of these assumptions are invalid.

I suspect a person enjoying their headphones, or even IEMs, is probably less of a threat to me on the road than the a**hats I see every day, doing all manner of crazy things while driving... carrying on phone conversations (or better yet, text message conversations)/eating a bowl of cereal (bowl in one hand, spoon in the other)/applying mascara (hope you don't jab yourself in the eye with that brush, wait, on second thought...)/etc. But that's purely a subjective impression.

Ace - maverick is correct - instead of actually reading the threads you bestowed upon us your opinion which would never change no matter what was presented. You are either smug and think you know everything or you lack basic reading comprehension and know that if you attempt to read - you'll get confused at any word over 4 letters..

My opinion has shifted BECAUSE I read what others had to say. I at first thought No types of headphone anywhere except the vacant stretches of road from El Paso to San Antonio. Then i read more about the open headphones - then I tried them. I now know that in all but heavy traffic my HD-238's are appropriate and do not diminish my driving. In city traffic I am cautious enough so I might not listen to music at all.